Research in the area of ad-hoc networks has yielded important advances, notably in the field of physical layer techniques. In particular, a lot of effort has been spent in: i.) applying smart antennas and antenna diversity techniques to ad-hoc networks as explained in “Smart antenna system analysis, integration and performance for mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs),” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 571-581, 2002 by S. Bellofiore, J. Foutz, R. Govindarajula, I. Bahceci, C. Balanis, A. Spanias, J. Capone, and T. Duman; in “Ad hoc networking with directional antennas: a complete system solution,” IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 496-506, 2005, by R. Ramanathan, J. Redi, C. Santivanez, D. Wiggins, and S. Polit; and in “Emerging adaptive antenna techniques for wireless ad-hoc networks,” ISCAS 2001. The 2001 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, vol. 4, pp. 858-861, 2001, by T. Ohira, ii.) developing medium access control protocols suitable for Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) ad hoc networks as explained in “MIMO ad hoc networks with spatial diversity: medium access control and saturation throughput,” vol. 3, 2004, pp. 3301-3306, 2004 43rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), by M. Hu and J. Zhang; in “Improving throughput and fairness for MIMO ad hoc networks using antenna selection diversity,” GLOBECOM '04. IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference, vol. 5, pp. 3363-3367, 2004, by M. Park, J. Heath, R. W., and S. Nettles; and in “A MAC protocol for mobile ad hoc networks using directional antennas,” 2000 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, vol. 3, pp. 1214-1219, 2000, by A. Nasipuri, S. Ye, J. You, and R. Hiromoto, and iii.) adaptive algorithms for antenna beamforming in ad hoc networks as described in “Noncooperative iterative MMSE beamforming algorithms for ad hoc networks,” IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 748-759, 2006, by R. Iltis, S. Kim, and D. Hoang; in “Smart-antenna system for mobile communication networks part 2: Beamforming and network throughput,” IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 106-114, 2002, by S. Bellofiore, J. Foutz, C. Balanis, and A. Spanias, and in “On the performance of ad hoc networks with beamforming antennas,” Proceedings of the 2001 ACM International Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing, pp. 95-105, 2001, by R. Ramanathan. Directional antennas, like phased arrays and switchable parasitic elements antennas, have been proposed as a solution to reduce the interference of adjacent nodes, maximizing overall network throughput in articles such as “Smart antenna system analysis, integration and performance for mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs),” (citation above) “Emerging adaptive antenna techniques for wireless ad-hoc networks,” (citation above) and “Multicast communication in ad hoc networks with directional antennas,” Proceedings 12th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks, pp. 385-390, 2003, by C. Jaikaeo and C. C. Shen. In order to further increase the network spectral efficiency, MIMO spatial multiplexing (SM) techniques and diversity techniques have been adopted. However, directional arrays and MIMO SM/diversity techniques cannot be integrated on compact portable devices, where the limited space available makes mounting multiple directional antennas difficult.
In order to overcome practical space limitations and merge the benefits of MIMO SM/diversity techniques with those of directional antennas, the inventors propose to adopt electrically reconfigurable antennas as a key element of MIMO/single-input-multiple-output (SIMO)/multiple-input-single-output (MISO) transceivers in ad-hoc networks. These antennas have been demonstrated to increase channel capacity while reducing the space occupation of the antenna on the communication device. While this previous work has focused on the performance of reconfigurable antennas in single link communications, there has been no published work on implementing and field testing a system that employs reconfigurable antennas in multi-link MIMO/SIMO/MISO ad hoc networks.